Financial Blackmail is no different

Loan money in bad loans or we will shut you down.

Push product to hit sales quota or we will fire you.

Avoid paying the full tax burden or we will break you.

Lie to me or I will despise you.

These are the same use of authority and positional power.

One person makes a losing game for another person out of an existential threat.

Fear the Boom and Bust

Check out this crash course in economic philosophy - for more depth check out Commanding Heights from the BBC - below

What cannot science know... quite a bit

Powerful defense of God and Deism generally, this is taken from the 1998 debate between Craig and Atkins.

There is no business school anymore

I'd like to know what the educational background is of the executive staff in The Fortune 100 companies.  I can guarantee that education outside of liberal schools represents less than 5%, maybe less than 3%.  I bet that 99.9% have a BS/BA, most from left leaning institutions.  Many will have MBAs from "top tier" business schools - HBS, Wharton, etc.  Some may even have doctorate level degrees in related fields.  

Have we ever stopped to think about what type of employee these schools are creating?  I can guarantee you that the degrees and education these students have received do not produce capitalist entrepreneurs.  These employees are activists, they are not really even business men and women.  Oh yes, they perform the day to day operations and are held accountable for profit and loss, however their view of the company and the country are not one of independence and autonomy from the government.  It is one of Corporate Social Responsibility and Public and Private Interdependence.  

These are not people who seek to confront government control of industry in favor of free market liberty.  They agree with socialism in principle and will bow to the wishes of government. They have been given their positions of power in industry presisely for this reason.  

Why?  Because they have been taught this.  These men and women have been indoctrinated. They are not individuals, they are members of a group: the elite club of Ivy Leauge and Bush Leauge schools - the best of brightest of the dimmest and dumbest we have to offer.  

What is the definition of Failure?

Gibbs reply: Do they Republicans want to see the president's economy fail?  (read: to reporters, ask Republicans denounce Rush Limbaugh).  Obama does not have an economic policy, he has a government policy.  We want his government policy to fail.  In order for the economy to succeed the government must get its money grubbing hands off of it.  Since when does the government control the economy!?  We've accepted this premise for far to long.  

Hubris is my, Middle Name

Barack H. Obama, Hubris on display.  This leader of ours is demonstrating an amazing self destructive streak that is akin to cliff diving or playing chicken.

When Criminal Becomes Legal.

When Criminal Becomes Legal.

Since John Brown, former member of the British Parliament began contributing to the Pittsburgh Tribune Review opinion page I've become an avid reader.  His thinking has influenced mine.  And I've integrated some of the his ideas with my understanding of this imposed financail crisis.

In a recent conversation I made the statement that this is a real crisis based on imaginary causes.  This peaked some ire, and gave me the opportunity I sought to explain my understanding of recent events.  Basically I made the case that yes, loose credit and debt laden Americans are responsible for the unwillingness to address inherent problems in our economy (your 70% GDP/consumption stat).  And yes, the government did drive the economy into a ditch with financially illiterate rules and regulations that created the subprime crisis and the debasement of the dollar.  I'd add that the citizenry's entitlement mentality is a corollary with these factors creating an unsustainable Social Security Scheme, the potential for further disasters in Health Care and a Welfare State that is creating a permanent underclass of dependant wards of the state.

 

Significantly it is the cooperation of government and industry lining the pockets of those barons of Wall Street and others that encouraged the bubbles of the Internet, Investing, Housing and Commodities.  Now I am not opposed to capitalism benefiting those with capital - however the imaginary, over-leveraged, high-margin OPM (other peoples money) had doped those in positions of power.  Bernie Maddoff is not entirely an aberration but an exemplar of the times even a symptom of a greater disease.  It is this disease of criminally irresponsible plutocratic capitalism that has metastasized.  The house of cards is crumbling while Bush and Obama offer the same solutions - Bailouts and Stimulus.  Now the risk of failures has been mitigated and the justice of the market pardoned.  Instead the burden of failure being on those who took the risks it is being foisted upon the masses - that crucial and useful middle class of capitalism.  We will carry the weight of the debts of this country for generations, if not until the global economy's utter ruin.  This is criminal in the highest order, yet none of these crimes will be prosecuted because the mafia is making the rules.  The foxes are guarding the hen house.

 

Therefore I ask what do we do when the criminal become legal? 

Am I wrong? 

Don't we have a major foundational problem that goes much deeper that the $INDU?